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Toronto Centre byelection ‘a trial run’ for real battle of 2015

While the Liberals won in the Toronto Centre byelection, the NDP made it a close contest. In the 2015 election, the new University-Rosedale riding could mean they both win.

Liberal winner Chrystia Freeland, at her victory party Monday, is not likely to make any decisions soon about whether to run in University-Rosedale or Toronto Centre in 2015.
(Carlos Osorio / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

NDP candidate Linda McQuaig, at the NDP gathering after the byelection Monday, says “the real point is, what happens in 2015,” referring to the next federal election. (Rick Madonik / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

OTTAWA—Nothing in Monday’s federal byelections settled the score between the feuding Liberals and New Democrats — especially in Toronto Centre, where the fight was most intense.

And some big, looming changes in Toronto’s electoral map, as well as lingering hard feelings between the parties, mean that the byelections may have only fuelled NDP and Liberal resolve to make downtown Toronto a major battlefield in the 2015 vote.

So while victory in Toronto Centre went to the Liberals’ Chrystia Freeland, the New Democrats were fighting this campaign with a hopeful eye to the radical changes to come in long-time Liberal riding stronghold.

The riding of Toronto Centre will be split up in the next election — its northern, wealthier half carved off to become part of a new riding called University—Rosedale. Most of the southern, more-lower-income part of the old riding will remain as Toronto Centre.

This breakup of the riding also splits Toronto Centre along partisan-friendly lines, too, as well as along the income gap.

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Though Monday’s poll-by-poll results are not yet official for Toronto Centre, they’re likely to show that Freeland won the riding mainly on the strength of votes north of Bloor St., in Rosedale.

NDP candidate Linda McQuaig, on the other hand, was believed to be stronger in the areas south of Bloor, which will remain at the heart of Toronto Centre in 2015.

McQuaig was talking about the byelections in terms of lessons learned for the future, when Toronto Centre will be a much different riding.

“The real point is, what happens in 2015,” said McQuaig, speaking to reporters after Freeland’s victory was declared late Monday.

“We did better than we’ve ever done in Toronto Centre . . . . Consider this just a trial run for the real thing.”

Liberals were buoyant on Tuesday about the byelection results, portraying them as a sign that they’re bouncing back from the political wilderness under new leader Justin Trudeau. The party also held on to its Montreal riding of Bourassa, as well as finishing a surprise, close second in the Manitoba riding of Brandon—Souris.

“By staying positive and talking about the real priorities of Canadians, we won more votes than any other party and made big gains in every part of the country: English, French, East, and West,” Trudeau said in a letter to Liberals on Tuesday.

In a triumphant speech Monday night, Trudeau took a shot at the NDP, saying it had turned its back on the famous words in the letter that former leader Jack Layton wrote on his deathbed in 2011.

“Make no mistake, the NDP is no longer the hopeful, optimistic party of Jack Layton,” Trudeau said. “It is the negative, divisive party of Thomas Mulcair. Because it is the Liberal party tonight that proved hope is stronger than fear, that positive politics can and should win out over negative.”

Layton’s widow, Trinity—Spadina MP Olivia Chow, told reporters on Tuesday she was “disappointed” that Trudeau had chosen to borrow her late husband’s words to slam the NDP.

And Mulcair said: “That Justin Trudeau would use Jack Layton’s dying words as a political tool says everything that needs to be said about Justin Trudeau’s judgment and character.”

NDP officials also challenged Liberals’ claims to have stayed on the high road, circulating anti-Mulcair flyers that, they said, Trudeau’s team were distributing in Toronto Centre in the final days of the campaign.

Liberals, however, said Tuesday the byelections put them in contention to be the true opposition once again to the Conservatives, who held on to their two ridings in Manitoba, though with reduced support.

In Toronto and Montreal, Conservative support was in the single digits and voter turnout overall in the byelections was dismal – just 38 per cent in Toronto and as low in 26 per cent in Bourassa. The highest turnout, in Brandon-Souris, was just 44 per cent.

Low turnout isn’t unusual for byelections, but it’s also possible that Canadians are turned off politics altogether by what has seemed to have been a steady stream of scandal from all levels and stripes of government the past few months.

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